UBI is simply bad hygiene for society. Someone that needs a UBI to sustain themselves is like a rotting tooth that needs to be pulled. Instead of doing the dirty work of uprooting the odious tooth the dentist, out of laziness, just cosmetically whitens the tooth. The untrained observer will think everything is fine with Society's teeth, but under the surface the rot continues unabated until Society dies from the infection.

So tens of millions of people that are forced out of work due to their jobs being automated are rotten teeth? Are you assuming that they have replacement job opportunities but are just lazy and want a free means of survival? Are you saying that it's survival of the fittest and we should actively take steps to limit the part of the population who don't have a means to contribute to the economy? What's your solution in the event that 30-50% of jobs are replaced and there's no fall back job for these people?

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL****F.TOTL.IN

Why don't we wait to worry about this when the labor force is actually shrinking?

Why is it not our place to tell instruct them to how to spend it? You don't give child the ability to choose to cash out their tuition cheque for a new car. Ideally if you've done a good job raising the child they'll understand why, but these are people who by design tend not to have learnt many life lessons and don't necessarily have a firm grip on priorities... not just in terms of what WE think is good for them, but what THEY would think is good for them if they had the benefit of a lifetime of experience.

I think it's pretty widely agreed on that the purpose of welfare is to prevent human suffering, not to give them a free ride. The essentials of life don't vary much from person to person. So why give them cash?

Well, let's say everyone in this thread suddenly made the same salary and didn't have to work for it? How do you think that would work out?

Anecdotally, I was on a severance package for 6 months, full salary. I can tell you the first few weeks were glorious, the next few bored, and then my life started going down the drain. I had nothing to do since everyone else was at work. I routinely got up at 11, didn't shower til 1, and was drunk by 4. Take a nap, have dinner, then decide if I wanted to drink again.

Nothing saps the life out of you faster than not having goals or simply something to do. I understand why retired people die. There's nothing to do, so you better have a spouse and some kids around, because at least then you have chores or errands to run even if they aren't all that fun.

Humans absolutely need something to keep their minds occupied.

For those of you who are against universal basic income or similar types of support for the poor, I have a question. What is your plan to deal with the people that are in the bottom 5% as far as value to a capitalist society?
Some of those people are likely very limited intellectually, others may have mental illness or addiction issues. Some may have very poor health. There are millions of these people. Do you propose just letting them live on the streets begging for food without any health care and just letting them die? I don't think it is realistic that these people are going to get motivated and get jobs or go to college. Especially as basic low skill jobs get harder to find.
Curious how you see things playing out for this group.

Most critics of ubi have drawn the distinction between it and a social safety net. You can give basic food, housing and medical attention without making cash payments.

I presume everyone gets the social net and there will be a minor drift in job participation, but overall the people making money will still make money. It's not like everyone quits their job and we revert to some kind of fantasyland communism-esque environment where nobody works.


I'm gonna go on kind of a tangent to this... I can relate to this, but honestly I consider this a good thing. I took a trading job in Chicago where consensus was failure rate was 90%. The reason I did it was because I wanted a level of financial success in trading that I didn't get with poker. When I achieved that, I realized it didn't make my life happier. It made life more comfortable and less stressful wrt bills and stuff, sure, but I got the general emptiness residue that happens when you dedicate your entire life to one thing (in my case, trading) and once that's no longer an itch, you're left with a hollow existence. Burnout except you don't really have anything to fall back on.

I found "Know Your Truth" by Ravikant to be helpful in this regard. I have new goals, I know my reason for existence, so I'm working to accomplish those things instead of getting drunk on my couch at 3pm.

UBI is gonna throw a lot of society into this existential quandary, and I anticipate a lot of people on the poverty line are going to go the "drunk at 3pm on your couch" route which is sad. Others may take it as their moment of truth and finding purpose. The scene I like referencing (and quoted in Ravikant's book) is the one where Tyler Durden takes the shop clerk's ID and tells him he will get murdered unless he immediately works to become a Veterinarian. For other people that could mean working on art, health, travel, all things that are at least achievable on a budget with that new safety net.

Finding existence or purpose outside of work/money goals is something that everyone ought to come face to face with, especially in a future where many jobs could totally disappear. The moral question, from a society standpoint, is what % of society gets presented UBI and it totally ruins them (like your 3pm couch drunk experience). I suspect it is not a small %. If anything, that's the argument against UBI. But the India study I think presents a good counterpoint.

Clayton, i believe you're falling into the trap of "if i just had enough money, then i would do xxx".

90% of those things you can do today without money. Travel for example. It's not like higher welfare (UBI) will turn mindless people into highly conscious creators.

I still wonder anyways where all that magic money will come from anyways. Somebody has to produce and somebody has to take it from them without discouraging future production. Not sure how long shaming and guilt work, altho i have to say they are strong weapons.

i would assume individuals working 2 jobs and 60 hours a week are probably too zombie/withered to actually explore the avenues of things that you can do without money. insert UBI and they would be more inclined, on average. the question is how does the weighting look, and what % of people find those productive outlets vs. getting drunk on their couch at 3pm.

I completely disagree with this. If I don't have to work and I can make the same salary I'm not working.


I disagree with this also. I don't need some kind of "purpose" to live. I have purpose and that's my personal relationships. I don't need purpose at work to make me feel good, and I don't know how people can look for meaning while at work. I'm not saving lives, I'm staring at computer screens.

Maybe we are just different people but my happiness comes from family and friends. Work is a means to an end, it enables me to reach a level of satisfaction when it comes to those family and friends. Without income, my personal relationships suffer due to lack of resources. As soon as those resources don't become an issue anymore, I most definitely will not be working.

I would venture a guess that whatever salary you make now is going to be higher than what you'd receive with UBI. I'm not sure if we've delved into hypotheticals at this point or not, I was just presuming real world dollar figures.

You're sorta misreading what I wrote and we're sorta agreeing with each other. I'm not talking about needing a purpose in work, I just mean a purpose in general. Yours is your family and your personal relationships. For a stretch, mine was work. When my work sorta burnt out I had to re-figure out what exactly I wanted.

I don't want to go down a rabbit hole on this topic, I just wanted to highlight the fact that your severance package anecdote (from my vantage point) was your way of saying that UBI would sap the life out of anyone who didn't have a family or kids or many friendships (not trying to put words in your mouth). I simply took exception to this fact, because personally facing a situation where I didn't *have* to work for long stretches of time (lol slow markets) I did face the "life sap" but I worked my way out of it, and I don't think it has to be considered a given.

This sounds nice but in today's society we assign status to someone based on that person's work (and education). Therefore imo in order to achieve the full-on paradise UBI-land, society will need to stop doing that.

Well sadly this has somewhat changed. For example in some left wing circles, the most oppressed victim has the highest status. And success is seen as oppressive.

Thought for a bit that this thread was going off the rails into politard-land (hard not to, given the subject), but I've enjoyed the recent back-and-forth between Clayton + Wil. Thanks for sharing guys.

Well? You should! Hard work and education should be rewarded and admired and strived for. UBI will always be looked down on from those who are getting their pocket picked to pay for it.

UBI will never work if we wish to continue as capitalistic nation. If we wish to become socialists or communists it is almost a necessity. But this country will evolve as it always has. Whatever the new economy becomes the populace will adapt to it to earn livings. There will always be a top and a bottom. But it is up to each person to figure out where they will fall. Personal responsibility is the key to everything. If you expect to be given things you won't ever really accomplish much on your own. If you work hard and look for opportunity you will likely succeed.

Does not compute... lol

I think there is a tremendous amount of evidence that this is decidedly false.

If you can get into the military you can succeed. If you make it a career you will be taken care of in retirement. If you don't make it a career you can gain educational benefits that will allow you to succeed elsewhere. You will also likely learn a marketable skill. If you are smart about it you won't be sleeping in a ditch or really be put in harms way (think Air Force or Navy).

This option is available. You may choose not to take it is but it is there. I would say it is a better choice than a dead end min wage lifestyle.

Life is what you make it. If you get lemons make lemonade.

You are correct here, I sound like a big contradiction and I owe an explanation.

When I was on severance, it was simply an extended vacation. Instead of being on vacation for 7 days, I was on vacation for 180 days. I knew I had to go back to work, I just knew it wouldn't be for a long time. I think many people here can relate that if they are on vacation for 7 days maybe on day 5 or day 6 they start to get antsy to get back to normal life (maybe some of you don't). That's what happened to me, except I didn't have a job to go back to because I didn't start looking until day 150.

Now, if things were different and I knew I'd be safe in my income and I never had to work again, I would fill my open time up with something different. I might learn to do something meaningful from home like learn how to trade securities, or maybe donate my time doing charity, I don't know. What I do know is I'd have to find something to occupy my mind.

Also, my situation changed, as I now have multiple children, so that in and of itself would take up more time.

I hope that is somewhat of a better explanation.

Lots of people are born into bad homes with bad parents and bad nutrition and bad education and bad role models and so on. As a result, it is very unlikely they are able to develop the skills necessary to ever think these life paths through. All they'll ever know is low level thinking and simple desires and an asphyxiating inability to ever be good at anything. I've worked with poor people who can't even fathom basic budgeting or solve basic logic problems; simple notions of healthy lifestyle or forward thinking or creative problem solving go entirely over their heads. These are adults with children, by the way.

From your vantage point, sure it seems very easy for those poor people to join the military and go to college after and get some degree and go get 60k/year or whatever, but that's because you're probably a lot smarter than them and have learned skills such as foresight and problem solving as a result of your superior resources from birth.

If poor and unemployed people chose to be poor and unemployed then who cares what happens to them. I think the crux of the UBI issue is that they don't choose to be, so therefore we should wonder what's the most sensible way to enable the next generation to have a brighter path

Sorry for the politarding

You can't not care about them because they choose to not care about themselves. There is still a line you have to draw, because people dying in the streets is simply unacceptable in our society, at least, in some form.

Where we draw that line is another topic.

im sorry but if you cant figure out what to do when you dont have to work and am getting paid $$, then you seriously lack imagination. You could have at least tried to start a business or something.

its charity or their families responsibility to take care of them not the govt. If people arent feeling charitable then yes let them die.

Are there no prisons? Are there no work houses?